INTREPID REPORT: Week of April 19, 2021

 

We cannot keep publishing without your help. We have no paywalls or ads. Nor do we receive corporate or foundation funding. All we have is you to keep us publishing. We rely on you to help us pay our monthly expenses. So please Donate Monday   U.S. joins past empires in Afghanistan graveyard President Biden announced a removal of all U.S. troops by September 11, but he failed to include some important details. By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies An Afghan taxi-driver in Vancouver told one of us a decade ago that this day would come. “We defeated the Persian Empire in the eighteenth century, the British in the nineteenth, the Soviets in the twentieth. Now, with NATO, we’re fighting twenty-eight countries, but we’ll defeat them, too,” said the taxi-driver, surely not a member of the Taliban, but quietly proud of his country’s empire-killing credentials.   Home invasions: All the ways the government can lay siege to your property By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead Americans are not safe in their homes.   Freedom Rider: Vaccine passports in a failed state By Margaret Kimberley The non-vaccinated can be smeared and equated with MAGA hat wearing Trumpers, regardless of their religious or political affiliations.   The secret wars of Africa’s Sahel: What is behind Mali’s ongoing strife By Ramzy Baroud In a recent report, the United Nations Mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, concluded that, on January 3, French warplanes had struck a crowd attending a wedding in the remote village of Bounti, killing 22 of the guests.   Contrary to what Biden said, US warfare in Afghanistan is set to continue No matter what the White House and the headlines say, U.S. taxpayers won’t stop subsidizing the killing in Afghanistan until there is an end to the bombing and "special operations" that remain shrouded in secrecy. By Norman Solomon When I met a seven-year-old girl named Guljumma at a refugee camp in Kabul a dozen years ago, she told me that bombs fell early one morning while she slept at home in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Valley. With a soft, matter-of-fact voice, Guljumma described what happened. Some people in her family died. She lost an arm.   Tuesday   The dirty campaign underlying Ecuador’s “free and fair” election By Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores Ecuador’s April 11 election that led to a 5-point victory by conservative banker Guillermo Lasso over progressive candidate Andrés Arauz was not what it appeared to be. On the surface, it was a surprisingly clean and professional election, as our CODEPINK official observer delegation witnessed. But a fraud-free process for casting and counting ballots does not mean that the election was free and fair. Behind the scenes was a monumentally unequal playing field and dirty campaign designed to quash an Arauz win.   A school for spooks: The London university department churning out NATO spies By Alan MacLeod Last week, MintPress exposed how the supposedly independent investigative collective Bellingcat is, in fact, funded by a CIA cutout organization and filled with former spies and state intelligence operatives. However, one part of the story that has remained untold until now is Bellingcat’s close ties to the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, an institution with deep links to the British security state and one that trains a large number of British, American and European agents and defense analysts.   DeSantis signs ‘outrageous and blatantly unconstitutional’ anti-protest bill into law "Every single Floridian should be outraged by this blatant attempt to erode our First Amendment right to peacefully assemble." By Jake Johnson Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed into law a bill that civil rights groups warn is designed to crack down on peaceful demonstrations and criminalize dissent by redefining “rioting” in an overbroad way and creating draconian new felonies for protest-related offenses.   Amazon union vote shows why we need the PRO Act In the face of intimidation by one of the largest companies in the world, Alabama workers bravely spoke out about the need for greater labor protections. By Rebekah Entralgo Following one of the most high-profile union votes in history, workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama—led by Black organizers—ultimately rejected efforts to form a union by 71 percent, according to the National Labor Relations Board.   Biden’s industrial policy By Robert Reich America is about to revive an idea that was left for dead decades ago. It’s called industrial policy, and it’s at the heart of Joe Biden’s plans to restructure the U.S. economy.   Wednesday   Washington sanctions Cuba. Why not Saudi Arabia? Cuba will remain one of Washington’s chosen enemies, while relations with the murderous autocratic Saudi regime will be “recalibrated.” By Brian Cloughley According to the geopolitical analysis site STRATFOR, sanctions are “a coercive tool to compel a targeted entity to adjust its behaviour” and can be effected in a number of ways and, indeed, applied for very different reasons. An intriguing aspect of sanctions’ imposition is that some of these reasons are not intended primarily to alter the target’s behaviour but rather to penalise it for failing to follow the policies of the punisher.   Escalate to deescalate… then Biden takes escalator sideways By Finian Cunningham President Joe Biden wasn’t expecting Russia’s rapid slap back. He assumed, wrongly, that he could hit Moscow with a new round of sanctions (based on slanderous claims) and look as if he were chewing gum and acting the hard man.   Democratic lawmakers urge Barrett to recuse herself from Koch dark money case The members of Congress note that Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-funded advocacy group, mounted a "full-scale campaign" in support of the justice's confirmation. By Jake Johnson Three Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday urged U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett to recuse herself from a pending case revolving around the nonprofit arm of Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-funded political advocacy group that spent heavily to ensure Barrett’s confirmation to the bench last October.   The basic deal between Corporate America and the GOP is alive and well By Robert Reich For four decades, the basic deal between big American corporations and politicians has been simple. Corporations provide campaign funds. Politicians reciprocate by lowering corporate taxes and doing whatever else corporations need to boost profits.   Biden’s jobs plan will help seniors get care at home By supporting quality home care, the plan will help seniors avoid dangerous, for-profit nursing facilities. By Rebekah Entralgo As the nation’s population ages, the need for more care workers and safer, more affordable care options is urgent.   Thursday   Russia increases its defense while U.S. backs down from provoking WWIII The stooge-president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, appears to be trapped between what he has promised to do — which is for Ukraine to retake both Donbas and Crimea — and what will be within his power to do. By Eric Zuesse Ever since Joe Biden became America’s President in January, America’s hostile and threatening actions and rhetoric against (as Biden refers to him) the ‘killer’ Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President, have made clear to Putin that the U.S. government’s determination to impose regime-change upon Russia will continue undiminished. This hostility from Biden has dashed Putin’s hope that the string of sanctions which the U.S. Government has constantly been adding to ever since President Obama started the anti-Russian sanctions in 2012, would end, or at least not continue to be added to, under Biden.   In closed-door event with corporate lobbyists, Manchin vows $15 wage ‘not going to happen’ A top restaurant industry lobbyist reportedly "couldn't contain his excitement" at the West Virginia Democrat's remarks. By Jake Johnson Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia on Tuesday reportedly mocked the popular push for a $15 federal minimum wage during a private event with restaurant industry lobbyists, telling attendees he prefers an hourly wage floor of $11 and nothing “above half of that” for tipped workers.   Freedom Rider: Gun violence starts at the top By Margaret Kimberley If the state reserves the right to commit mass murder no one should be surprised that the people follow suit.   How to live in wonder By Caitlin Johnstone It’s so easy, as the years wind on, to sink into adult-mind. To get crusty and stagnant in our knowing. To lose our sense of wonder.   A must read for any seeker of answers to the mysteries of life By William T. Hathaway Posted on April 22, 2021 by William T. Hathaway In his new book, One Unbounded Ocean of Consciousness, Dr. Tony Nader has attempted something very difficult and achieved it very well. He overcomes the conceptual gap separating matter from mind, science from spirituality, the human from the divine and takes us beneath these superficial dualities into a fundamental synthesis establishing the wholeness of life. He conveys the unity underlying all diversity, and he deftly and convincingly resolves the apparent contradiction between free will and determinism. Nader writes in a clear, step-by-step manner that makes this knowledge understandable and shows how it can benefit us as individuals.   Friday   The United States’ extensive knowledge of the 1976 planned military coup in Argentina While the released documents portray the U.S. as having knowledge of the coup as opposed to intervening overtly or covertly, the aftermath shows U.S. involvement was considerable. By Ramona Wadi Last March, on the 45th anniversary of Argentina’s descent into dictatorship, the National Security Archive posted a selection of declassified documents revealing the U.S. knowledge of the military coup in the country in 1976. A month before the government of Isabel Peron was toppled by the military, the U.S. had already informed the coup plotters that it would recognise the new government. Indications of a possible coup in Argentina had reached the U.S. as early as 1975.   Comply or die: The only truly compliant person in a police state is a dead one By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead Americans aren’t dying at the hands of police because of racism.   ‘If you want to save the USPS,’ says watchdog, ‘fire Louis DeJoy’ "The entire board and then Mr. DeJoy should be handed their walking papers," said Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.). "Their unquestioning support for this postmaster general is unacceptable." By Julia Conley Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on Thursday reiterated its call for the ouster of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the Republican megadonor accused of attempting to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service last year as millions of Americans relied on the agency to participate in the presidential election.   A Palestinian prayer for Ramadan: May the voices of the oppressed be heard By Ramzy Baroud COVID-19 cases in Palestine, especially in Gaza, have reached record highs, largely due to the arrival of a greatly contagious coronavirus variant which was first identified in Britain.   How “representative” is US democracy? By Thomas L. Knapp American politicians love to boast of their nation’s status as the world’s premier “representative democracy,” and to lecture other, presumably less enlightened, countries on the importance of representative political institutions. Going by the numbers (which admittedly don’t tell the whole story), there’s good reason to question whether such preening is justified.